Agricultural and industrial wastewaters are often laden with suspended solids, nitrogen compounds, and phosphorus compounds. These compounds are both inorganic and organic in nature. Their concentrations range from 10 to 20 times of those values commonly found in domestic wastewaters. Typical retention times of 1.5 hours are needed to remove the compounds from the wastewater. The long retention times required to treat the wastewater reduces the volume of wastewater that can be treated by a facility on a daily basis. Thus, there is a need for a method and system that can reduce the retention times needed to remove compounds from wastewater to increase the volume of wastewater that can be treated by a facility on a daily basis.
In addition, most states have adopted water quality and environmental regulations that restrict farms from discharging the wastewater site into receiving streams. Furthermore, the regulatory statutes have restricted the amount of nutrients that may be applied to the land. These actions while they are environmentally sound, limits the amount of solids and liquid waste that farmers may apply to their land, which imposes an economic burden on the farmer. Accordingly, there is a need for a method and system that provides the farmer with a more economical method and system for management of the solid and the liquid waste.
The composition of the waste varies significantly from location and type of farming operations being performed. Also, the composition of the waste, nutrients and solids, vary from day to day and site to site. Thus, there is a need in the art for a method and system of treatment of wastewater that includes provisions for pH control, recycle and dissolved gas addition.